Do we fulfill our lives as connected Christians, through sentiment and through engaging in helping the poor, reaching out to our neighbors through the compassion made possible by Christian humanitarian organizations? Christian humanitarian organizations work tirelessly all around the world to spread Hope, Faith, and Charity. Sharefaith has assembled a list of the top 4 Christian humanitarian organizations to give you a good overview of what they do and how to support them.
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Top 4 Christian humanitarian organizations fighting poverty, slavery, and world hunger.
Faith, hope, and charity: Three fundamental theological virtues inspiring and leading individuals to engage in humanitarian action within Christian organizations. We use these words frequently when we talk about what drives us in our lives, what motivates us to achieve, what keeps us grounded, and especially when we talk about helping the poor. We treat these words as emblematic tokens when we talk about the essence of life itself, what compassion is to us; what makes us who we are as humans.
There are many ways that you as a Christian can actively engage in helping the poor. Please take a look at each of the Top four Christian humanitarian organizations which are dedicated to fighting poverty and persecution and helping the poor all over the world today.
Through their members, volunteers and most importantly, thanks to Christian charity donations, they can work tirelessly in poverty-stricken areas to build schools, dig wells, translate books and administer to the needs of the poor. They do so by helping young mothers and children, putting an end to the persecution of helpless children, providing help to disaster-stricken regions and to allocate emergency resources to destitute people by fighting against poverty and slavery.
We have assembled a list of the top 4 Christian humanitarian organizations. Each of these Christian humanitarian organizations depends on your heartfelt engagement. You can be part of spreading the word and the deed. World hunger can indeed be defeated!
Compassion International
Do you have enough? Or do you have more than enough? Have you ever wondered why?
Perhaps you have more so that you can reach across to a child in poverty and bring him up to ‘enough’. Give a child hope, and the lie of poverty has nowhere to hide.”
(Dr. Wesley K. Stafford, President)
Compassion International is a Christian child sponsorship organization, dedicated to releasing children from economic, physical and spiritual poverty. Headquartered in Colorado Springs, it is active in 26 poverty-stricken countries around the world. It was founded by the Rev. Everett Swanson in 1952 to provide Korean War orphans with food, shelter, education, and healthcare as well as Christian teaching. Today they are still active in the fight to save children from poverty, helping more than 1,200,000 children through child sponsorship programs, education, health provision and vocational training. Through their engagement they aim to unravel the lies of poverty, allowing children to grow up having dreams and to succeed in life according to Christian values.
Through the gifts of financial resources, prayers, and love, Compassion International is working towards breaking the vicious cycle of life in poverty, understanding that escaping poverty requires economic and spiritual self-sufficiency. Understanding that poverty is deeper than the lack of food, clothing or shelter; it is a lack of hope. Without hope millions of children around the world are defenseless against the unrelenting voice of the enemy, which makes children believe the following: ‘Life holds nothing for me’, ‘I don’t count’, ‘I am worthless’, ‘no one can help me, ‘I am garbage’, ‘I don’t matter’.
“To beat poverty, we must give children the opposite of poverty. But the opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of Poor is not rich. It’s enough. Enough to succeed; physically, socially, economically and spiritually.”
(Dr. Wesley K. Stafford, President)
VISIT COMPASSION INTERNATIONAL
Food For The Hungry
Food for the Hungry (FI) is a Christian humanitarian organization helping the poor. With Sponsorship programs and operations in 26 countries, FI was founded by Dr. Larry Ward in 1971 and is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Its stated mission is:
“to walk with leaders, churches and families in overcoming all forms of human poverty by living in healthy relationship with God and His creation” (Psalm 146:7)
Larry Ward founded FH due to his ‘hurting heart’ for the suffering of the 12,000 children dying of hunger at that time in Haiti and Bangladesh. Since then, FH has been actively providing aid to the world’s most vulnerable people without consideration of race, gender or religion when it comes to helping the poor. Biblical values are upheld as FH operates from the understanding that poverty is the result of broken relationships:
- Between humans and humans
- Between humans and creation
- Between humans and God
By restoring these relationships in a holistic way, poverty CAN be overcome.
By partnering with Food for the Hungry, you can serve the poor in two key ways; to provide food, shelter, and clothing to survivors of natural disasters, and to ensure long-term economic development within impoverished communities. FI works towards turning these into healthy, productive places for children to grow up in.
FH is one of the key four humanitarian organizations we are considering here. Food for the Hungry previously focused on food distribution and economic development programs, but now increasingly focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention.
World Vision
World Vision Is an Evangelical Christian humanitarian organization active in 97 countries, dedicated to helping the poor, working with children, families, and communities to beat poverty and injustice. Deeply inspired by Christian values, they are dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people. Founded by Bob Pierce in 1950, World Vision has grown into one of the largest Christian and humanitarian organizations. Working according to evangelical convictions and within a theological framework, World Vision seeks to incorporate Christian belief into its mission of helping the poor, provide emergency relief, economic development, promote justice and spread awareness of countries in need. “In Christ, we have a role model who healed the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and comforted the outcast, and whose message was about restoring relationships and reconciliation.”
World Vision works with families, communities, and partners to ensure that children can grow up healthy and happy, be educated for life and experience the love of God and their neighbors. With a stress on Christianity as a part of any culture, World Vision is not affiliated with one specific church. Their staff is composed of all branches of Protestantism, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Samaritan’s Purse
Samaritan’s Purse is also a non-denominational Christian humanitarian organization, active in more than 100 countries worldwide dedicated to helping the poor, assisting people with physical needs as well as engaging in missionary work. Also Founded by World Vision founder Bob Pierce in 1970 with the vision to:
“Meet emergency needs in crisis areas through existing evangelical mission agencies and national churches”
As one of the world leading Christian organizations, Samaritan’s Purse mission statement declares that the humanitarian organization seeks to meet the spiritual and physical needs of people suffering from war, poverty, disaster, disease, and famine. Through combining missionary work with humanitarian aid relief projects, Samaritan’s Purse seeks to propagate the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Samaritan’s Purse specializes in emergency relief, providing shelter, water, food and nutrition, sanitation, medical care and public health.
Through an initial missionary focus, Samaritan’s Purse has grown into one of the largest Christian organizations to provide large-scale disaster relief, as in the examples below:
- Providing urgency medical care in the midst of harrowing conflicts in Somalia in 1993, Sudan since 1997, Kosovo 1999, Afghanistan 2002, and Iraq in 2003.
- Providing urgency relief following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, The El Salvador earthquakes in 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
- Providing emergency airlifts in Indonesia and Pakistan in 2005, North Korea in 2007, Myanmar and China in 2008.
- Providing Food distributions to hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Uganda and Darfur.
UPDATE
Unlikely Heroes
We’d also like to give recognition to UnlikelyHeroes. These guys are named after a collective group of people who are battling against human slavery that affects 27 million people worldwide. We all have a role to play in abolishing modern-day slavery. Most of their rescued child victims want to share their stories to help stop the trafficking cycle. Their mission is to rescue, restore and rehabilitate child victims of sex slavery through the implementation of restoration homes, rescue and prevention programs. You can learn more about and even partner with them by checking out their website.
A21 Campaign
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
When confronted with the horrific statistics surrounding human trafficking, it is easy to agree on the fact that “someone should do something.” In 2007, A21 recognized the need to be that “someone” and committed to combat the injustice of human trafficking through rescuing one life at a time. After extensive research, planning, fundraising, more research, and relationship building, we opened our first shelter for survivors of human trafficking at the end of 2008 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Today, we have identified a global need for rescue, rehabilitation, and restoration. Because of the growing necessity, we have established 11 field offices, shelters, transition homes, and administrative bases in 10 countries.
Ending global poverty is possible. Our mission must remain to increase the number of people taking positive action through providing donations, campaigning, and engagement in global Christian humanitarian organizations to fight extreme poverty. It’s not a dream. It is a vision which must come true.
“To loose the chains of injustice And untie the cords of the yoke, To set the oppressed free And break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry? And to provide the poor wanderer with shelter- When you see the naked, to clothe them, And not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” Then your light will break forth like dawn, And your healing will quickly appear; Then your righteousness will go before you, And the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; You will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. Isaiah 58:8
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